By now you’ve likely seen the new Arby’s ad campaign featuring an affable white guy leading a sing-along about “Good Mood Food.” Frankly, I have no idea whether the commercial is a success or not — YouTube comments like “WORST 
MARKETING CAMPAIGN EVER!” don’t help — but I love it. My reasoning is simple: the ad stars one of my closest friends over the last 14 years, my college roommate Andy Breving. (Look! We’re in the same fedora club!)
I recognize how cheesy that must sound, and I’m already anticipating the worst in the comments section — “Ooh, Mr. Big Shot, friends with a guy in a COMMERCIAL!” — but I’m thrilled for Andy, who’s finally making some good money after ten years of auditions in New York. So, to self-indulgently satisfy my whims, I interviewed my friend about his first national ad campaign. JOURNALISM!
Warming Glow: I’ve seen a couple of our friends post the commercials on Facebook, and I actually stop fast-forwarding through commercials to watch your cheesy singing. One of my colleagues tweeted that she “and the Arby’s commercial guy could really bro down over some karaoke and a few shots of Maalox.” What kind of feedback have you gotten? Any strangers recognize you yet?
Andy Breving: No strangers have recognized me yet, I don’t think. Although I was on the subway yesterday spacing out when the doors opened and I almost fell off the train. A couple people stared at me but it might have just been cause I looked like a clumsy douche. Oh and my super made a joke about it this morning. Really though, it’s been just a lot of feedback from friends and acquaintances so far. People are generally excited about it. And I’ve gotten a lot of comments about how often it airs: my friends from home feel like they’ve been getting quality time with me. It’s been really nice.
And yes I love karaoke. That’s probably pretty clear from the spot.
Every time I see it, I get excited. “Andy’s making so much BANK from this!”
Have you thought of the possibility that this will get played during every commercial break in the NCAA tournament, like those Applebee’s guys from a few years ago? And then you’ll be loathed by millions of people who will be all, “But people DON’T look the same way nude!”
It’s a concern, sure. Anything that gets played that much, particularly when it has a jingle in it, can be potentially maddening. But at least it’s not just a truck driving through the mountains over and over again; there’s some pretty funny stuff jammed into each frame of the spot. And there’s more in the pipeline too, so there will be a variety of RB commercials on air, just in case people aren’t sick of me yet.
Although from a personal finance standpoint, I’d be happy with a 24-hour wall of Good Mood Food spots on every channel, the nation’s mental health be damned…
So clear this up for me: the character you play is called “RB”? Do you have any control over what those initials stand for? Because I’d like to suggest “Rod Bonewood.”
The character is named RB, that’s why he wears that patch on the jacket (by the way I love that we are referring to him as “the character” like he’s King Lear or something). And the initials are a nod to the Raffel Brothers, the guys who founded Arby’s. But that can’t be his real name so… Rod Bonewood huh? I like it. How about Randy Beefwagon? I do think the first name has to be Rod or Randy.
You know, Randy Beefwagon may be an even better porn name than Rod Bonewood.
One final question: can I borrow your copy of Franzen’s Freedom or what? You promised me that ish back in August.
Wait, no. I mean, “What’s the next step for you?”
My wife has to finish it first, then it’s all yours. Fantastic book.
I’m shooting some more stuff in April for Arby’s, but I’m really stoked about this trip to the NASA space station in Alabama that I’m taking at the end of March. I’ll be teaching NASA employees (read: astronauts) about diversity in the workplace with an interactive theater group I work with. And diversity for astronauts means aliens. So we’re totally gonna act out scenes where the astronauts meet aliens and are like “hey, I’m not xenophobic, but I heard that all aliens blah blah blah”. And then we’ll teach them not to assume anything about aliens, because they are all totally different. My character’s name is Francois.
And I’m totally taking an early flight to Huntsville to check out the “Space Camp” museum ahead of time.
WHAT? Are you insane? If we lose an interstellar war because of your alien-tolerance policy, I’m gonna be pissed.
That kind of attitude is exactly the problem is with alien-human relations. Looks like you need some diversity training as well.
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